Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Creepy Things: The Murray Comics edition


This is the cover to Murray Comics' Creepy Things:


The cover is recoloured from the original cover on Charlton Comics' Ghost Manor #21:


The contents are as follows:

Want Ad, originally published in Ghostly Haunts #48, February 1976
Paid In Full, originally published in Ghost Manor #21, November 1974
Theft of Evil, originally published in Ghost Manor #11, April 1973
The Weirdest Character I've Ever Known!, originally published in Ghostly Haunts #38, May 1974
Seance of Terror!, originally published in This Magazine is Haunted #4, April 1952 check doomsday 9
Quite A Bargain!, originally published in Ghostly Haunts #46, October 1975
Kiss of the Serpent, originally published in Ghostly Haunts #45, July 1975
Avery and the Goblins, originally published in The Thing! #13, April 1954
The Last Cruise of the Princess III, originally published in Ghostly Haunts #39, July 1974
Monsters of the Mind, originally published in Strange Stories from Another World #4, December 1952
A Touch of Genius, originally published in Ghost Manor #2, December 1971
Library of Horror, originally published in The Thing! #13, April 1954 

Many of these stories were recycled by Charlton. It may be that the printings in this issue are more closely related to subsequent printings and not the original appearances as per my attributions above.

One story which is not as per the original publication is Séance of Terror!. Here's the splash page in Creepy Things:


And here's the splash page as it appeared a few years earlier in Doomsday #9:


The host, Doctor Death, has been excised from the original story - not only on the splash page, but in the individual panels throughout the story. This results in some necessary art extension, as you can see in the second panel. Presumably this is another case of censorship by the Murray editorial, probably because this was aimed at a younger audience than the Doomsday series.

Many of these stories also appeared in other Australian reprint comics by Murray and Gredown. 

The title and masthead for this issue hails from the Charlton Comics Creepy Things series. Other Murray one-shot magazines were related to previous Murray series or Planet Series editions eg. Ghostly Haunts and Shadows From Beyond, however there was no other Creepy Things issues or series by Murray.

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